US Invasion of Iraq Puts International Law At Risk.
[ Win..Win..Win...there is one l-i-t-t-l-e hurdle to get over on the way to the " tribunal ".Are those who are threatening prosecution of " war crimes ",themselves guilty of crimes under internationally accepted practice?Was this part( or all ) of the reason GWB " UNSIGNED " the ICC agreement?This could get quite interesting from a purely legal perspective.I can hear GWB and his gang shouting on the way to the courts :
HELL NO - WE WON'T GO!!
PS: Sorry to the thread for the interruption in the play-by-play by a Canadian...we return you now to your previously scheduled American “ programming “. heh heh heh
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) NEWS March 30, 2003 Posted to the web March 31, 2003
Judge Richard Goldstone tells Chris Barron that there is no moral justification for the war as there was in Kosovo
THE war against Iraq is unlawful and morally unjustifiable, says Judge Richard Goldstone, South African Constitutional Court judge and one of the :
world's most respected authorities on international human rights law.
In a frank interview this week, Goldstone said that by ignoring international law the US was endangering the whole body of humanitarian law built up since World War Two, with possibly dire consequences for future world stability.
"If the only superpower regards itself as above the law, then it has the potential of releasing everybody from the law," he said.
"If that's how the US acts, why should other countries consider themselves bound by international law?
"If the powerful excuse themselves from the international rule of law, then the whole thing breaks down; the concept becomes absolutely meaningless.
"One's reverting to the situation that existed in the 19th century, when powerful nations could do what they wished for their own selfish motives.
Colonialism was possibly the best example of that."
There were only two lawful ways of using military force, said Goldstone.
One was in the case of "dire self-defence", where an attack had been launched or the threat of attack was so imminent that there was no time to wait for the UN Security Council to act.
The only other legal basis for military action was when the Security Council authorised it.
Clearly, neither of these two has happened in the case of Iraq.
"The self-defence argument is very weak. The US was hardly under threat of imminent attack by Iraq. So, too, the UK, and even more so Australia," Goldstone said.
He said that UN Resolution 1441 "clearly did not authorise the use of military force. It expressly said that if Saddam Hussein remained in material breach of prior Security Council resolutions, and 1441, there would be serious consequences.
"Those consequences were not spelt out. And what's important is that at the time Resolution 1441 was passed, China, Russia and France stated expressly that the resolution they were voting for did not authorise the use of force, and that the matter would have to come back to the Security Council.
"It's quite clear that the majority of Security Council members do not authorise the use of force.
"For that reason, my view, and the overwhelming view of international lawyers, is that the attack on Iraq is not in accord with international law."
Goldstone said the use of military force by the US and Nato in Kosovo in 1999 had also contravened international law, but had been justified.
"There was no Security Council authorisation. The US and Nato allies didn't go to the Security Council because they knew they'd be met with a veto, so they decided to go ahead without a UN resolution.
"I chaired an international commission on Kosovo and we came to the conclusion that, although illegal, it was legitimate because of the justness and morality of protecting innocent Albanians, who were already the subject of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs.
"The basis of legitimacy there was that there was really no motive for intervention other than the protection of innocent civilians. None of the Nato countries had any other interest. There was no political reason, nothing to gain, no oil, no trade, no land in dispute. It was solely a humanitarian intervention."
The US and British action in Iraq did not come "anywhere near" the justification of the Kosovo intervention, Goldstone said.
US President George Bush's claim that the US invasion was about protecting Iraqis from Saddam was "very much an afterthought, and I think disingenuous", Goldstone said.
"It's got nothing to do with that," he said. He also rejected the argument that the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US provided moral justification for a pre-emptive strike against Iraq and its leader.
"I've seen no evidence linking Saddam to international terrorism," he said.
Even the existence of such evidence would not alter the fact that the invasion was unlawful and unjustified, unless there was evidence that the US was in imminent danger of an attack that could be avoided only by military action.
"Now one sees the US relying on the Geneva Convention. They ignored the convention in respect of the [suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban] detainees at Guantanamo Bay," he said.
Goldstone pointed out that the Geneva Convention required the US to set up an "appropriate tribunal" to determine the status of its captives. "The US has just refused to do that. They could appoint their own people to such a tribunal but they realise that it would have to be done honestly and openly, and they don't want to do that," he said.
In an address he gave in the US last year, Goldstone predicted that it would not be long before the US had to rely on the Geneva Convention. He warned that the US was weakening its own future claims by ignoring the convention. He believes this is what has now happened in the case of US prisoners of war being shown on Iraqi television.
"Both the US and Iraq have been in breach of the Geneva Convention, which provides that prisoners mustn't be treated in a degrading way, mustn't be made the object of curiosity.
"The US allowed footage to be taken of Iraqi prisoners who'd given themselves up. The Iraqis have gone further and shown US prisoners being interrogated, and that is far worse. But it's a matter of degree."
Goldstone said the fact that the US and Britain had broken international law did not make Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair war criminals "under present law".
"The waging of unlawful war has not been defined as a war crime, but this is an area of controversy. The new International Criminal Court couldn't agree on a definition of aggression but many countries want the waging of an aggressive war to be criminal."
Goldstone said the US had no right to bring about regime change in Iraq - or anywhere else.
"Sovereignty is important. My problem is, who's to be the judge? If you're only going to insist on regime change for weak nations while powerful nations do what they like, that's hardly an ethical, fair or just approach to international affairs."
He said international law was moving in the direction of recognising that, in extreme situations, intervention was justified for humanitarian reasons, "but this is not the same as regime change".
Regime change might be justified if it were shown that a regime was a danger to world peace, he said.
"But it would be for the UN Security Council to make that call, as they did when they authorised the US attack on the Taliban [the former rulers of Afghanistan]," he said. |
